>Wow. Everything I could have hoped for, was exceeded by 10 times with other cool stuff thrown in as a bonus. To say I was impressed would be to say that the pope goes to church.

It wasn’t all sprinkles and pop tarts, but it all worked out in the end.

We wanted to be on our way by 3 or so, got off to a late start but left about 3:30 with the show at 6. We piled in the limo, a bit of a tight squeeze, but after some adjustments to the seating placement — I was comphy. We partied up on the way, we’d brought beer and whatnot… a little something to pass the time with. It didn’t take all that long, time passed pretty quickly — I’m assuming he was going about 80 or so… but mainly it was just that no one had to drive that it flew by.

We stopped for a pitstop about halfway there, were doin OK with time, got a little something to eat… and we were off again.

About 30 min from Boston we heard a funny whine… then a *flopa*flopa*flopp*flopp*flopppppp* — flat tire, no spare.

They’d have to send a car from Springfield – at least 45 min to an hour. AAA doesn’t cover livery vehicles in case you were wondering.

As we were looking at the time, we had an hour and a half to get a tire 45 min, fix the flat, and drive another 30 min to the Charles Playhouse in Boston.

We weren’t going to make it.

I figured it was their fault… they didn’t equip their vehicle properly… so they ought to take responsibility. If they sent us 2 cabs for all the people, we could probably get there in time. At first it wasn’t received well — no one wanted to pay for the cab. I insisted that it would be covered by the limo company as they’d have special cases where someone would miss their flight or whatnot. Finally they asked the driver and he called to get some cabs out to pick us up off the highway. They came, got directions and brought us into Boston. We got there about 5 minutes before the show was starting (oh yeaaaaaah). It’s a good thing we didn’t get there late too… because they have a little something special planned for ‘those people’.

The show was amazing. The first little bit was the audience entertaining themselves. They had a scrolling sign that did a little intro… congratulated people in the audience who weren’t really in the audience citing exciting accomplishments. They caught on quickly and a few stood up when prompted to receive applause. They had a trick in store though, after the 3rd person — it essentially told them to sit down right after saying their name =] That person got a little embarrassed.

We had great seats, front center – directly behind the poncho section (it can get a little messy up front). We got a few beers, pulled a trick on the waitress after someone didn’t have their ID… (We asked for a certain number of Buds, Bud lights… changed the number once or twice, confirmed, but when she returned they pretended she got the number wrong – asked for another Bud light – paid for the others and the additional ahead. She came back with the other beer, a request for an additional beer went unheard, but Doug at least now had his beer.) and we were ready for the show.

It was performance art, it was musical, it was philosophical, the lighting was magnificent, the sound perfect, the entertainers excellent as much of it appeared impropetu. They’d feed off of the audience, work with it, had volunteers, walked across the seats using the audience as a steady base to keep themselves up (one of them walked right past me, using Laura as a base).

There was a lot of well written techno that they’d perform on drums, slide tubes (PVC), and even a PVC organ of sorts, with a little station of each of the 3 of the Blue Men.

The ‘special plan’ for the late people was that the show stopped abruptly – alarms went off, the lights flashed, and the late-comers appeared on the screen up front. A large lit sign up front flashed “Late Arrivals!” and the camera zoomed to the couple and fixed upon them until they sat. Even then it remained for a bit… and then the show resumed exactly where they had left off – without a hitch.

After some intriguing dialogue about digital duplication and copyright such as artists allowing their work to be modified without additional compensation and giving up the rights for the new work to be claimed by the new artist or more preferably — given away free to be enjoyed by all — it was the climax of the show:: The Rave.

The black lights came on, there were rolls of toilet paper all around the theater, up above on the balconies, and more on the lower level around the outside. They ran up to the top level and began rolling the paper and throwing it down on the audience. They were instructed to then pass it forward, when it got to me I realized it was slightly oversized for toilet paper – it was in fact crepe paper, much wider and heftier then toilet paper… like streamers.

Giant Tubes on the ceiling spun, catching some of the paper… it was a melee, the strobe lights were going, everyone was fervorously passing it to the front, piles and piles of the paper built up and rolled forward. At one point I was completely covered and could feel the weight of about a 5 foot ball of paper on my head, I couldn’t see anyone around me and the music was just blaring with the lights flashing through the paper… it was amazing — they successfully made everyone alone, in a crowd. This was a theme they touched on earlier – how everyone lived so close to other humans… but yet most of us were still alone.

I was just in awe with my face stuck in a permanent grin. I bought the DVD Audio disc on my way out, had been hoping to get the album(s) on vinyl for a few friends of mine, but alas they don’t offer it.

We met back up after the trek outside and went to dinner at “California Pizza House” which ended up being a high priced tourist trap where they couldn’t even make salad correctly and where it seemed that none of the waitresses or help spoke english as a native language – they didn’t often understand what we were asking, or what we wanted.

After too long, and disappointing food, we got out of there with some free dessert for the trouble. We called the limo driver to pick us up, and we were off for home.

It seemed longer on the way back, the driver told us they had come out with the other limo – that spare had been flat… but they had a donut in addition. They put a good tire from the other limo on ours and the donut on the limo that was heading back to Springfield. I was amazed that a limo company could be so unprepared. If it’s one thing you bring – it’s a spare, it ought to be part of the equipment check before you head out to a customer.

I was groggy on the way back – snuggled against the corner, just reveling in the experience I had had. It was wonderful. It was an awesome experience that I’d recommend to all!